IELTS Listening - Top 14 tips!

Published on 26 Apr 2014 | over 3 years ago

www.engvid.com/ Improve your IELTS score with these quick tips! In this lesson, you will learn about the Listening module of the IELTS exam. I will teach you the most common mistakes people make and how to avoid them. Watch this free video, so that you know how to practice for the IELTS Listening test. I want you to be prepared and confident on your test day, so that you can get the best results on your IELTS! www.engvid.com/ielts-listening-top-10-tips/

TRANSCRIPT

Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's lesson, I am going to teach you my top tips for the IELTS listening module. Okay?

So, before I teach you these tips, you might be wondering: "What's the IELTS listening module?" Well, the IELTS is a test and one part of the test is listening. So, in the listening section, you're going to have 40 questions where you're going to listen to some conversations for about 30 minutes, and then you'll have 10 minutes to transfer your answers over to another sheet. So, in total, it's 40 minutes; 30 minutes for listening, 10 minutes for writing down your answers.

Okay, now this part of the IELTS is very possible to get a high mark, especially if you follow my tips. All right? Now, before we get started, I just want to let you know: I know you can do the IELTS. I know you can pass, I know you can get a great mark, a great bandwidth - you just have to have confidence in yourself and you have to practice. Practice, practice, practice; it really pays off. So let's get started.

So, my first tip: write no more than three words. What do I mean by this? I don't mean for the whole thing, write no more than three words. On the IELTS, you will have to read the instruction of what to do. Often times, the instruction, before you listen, you're going to see: "Write no more than three words." This is an example of an instruction you must follow. One mistake a lot of students make during the IELTS is they don't read instructions properly. They're nervous, they're stressed out, they write whatever, they don't... They don't follow the instructions. If you see something like: "Write no more than three words." Do that. You can't write four, don't write five. Write three or less. Okay? So my main point here: follow the instructions carefully.

Point number two: get used to British English. A large part of the IELTS, you will be listening... For... For... Sorry, for the listening, you will be listening to British accents. Sometimes you might hear Australian accents or Canadian, you might hear a range, but a lot of the accents will be British. So it's very important to get used to listening to British accents. And also, listen to other accents like Canadian, Australian; that's a good idea too. Where can you find British accents to listen to? I recommend the BBC. They have a lot of great videos there and most of it's with British accents, so it's a very good idea so you can practice listening. The more you practice listening with British accents, the easier it will be to understand British speakers. Especially if you're used to American English, this is a very good thing to do.

Related to this point: British vocab. You should learn British vocabulary. For example: in American English and Canadian English, we say: "truck". In British English, we say: "lorry". So it's good to know some of these British expressions, some British words. One idea where you can practice these is if you check out our website: www.engvid.com , we have a new teacher who is British and who will be talking about British English, so check out her... Her videos. It will also be good to help you with practicing listening to British accents.

Number four: spelling counts. Okay? Very important. The listening part of the IELTS is not just listening; you're actually using other skills like writing and reading. Now, with writing, when you write down your answers, you sometimes have to spell something out, so you have to be very, very careful with spelling. Okay? This is something you should really study and practice before you take the listening part of the IELTS. Practice your spelling. Learn spelling rules. We have a lot of different videos on how to spell on engVid, so I would come and check those ones out.

Number five - this is the thing that always gets my students and I always warn them about when we practice - plural versus singular. Okay? You have to listen carefully on whether you're writing down the plural with an "s" or the singular. If the question wants me to write down: "cat", someone's talking about their cat and I write down: "cats", it's incorrect. I would get an "X". Okay, so it's important to be careful, to really listen: is it a singular thing, is it a plural thing? Are they saying "store" or "stores"? Okay?